Stay
by daisherz365
Summary: Effie has little regrets in life, but if she could do over the last night she would. HAYFFIE w/ minor EVERLARK


_STAY_

 _This is another prompt fill for 100years-to-live on Tumblr. She requested I incorporate the phrase_ :

 **"Tell me to go and I will, but if you ask me to stay I'll never leave you again."**

 _The angst fiend in me loves her for this. Not gonna lie this might be one of the best things I've ever written. Additionally it's connected to my last HAYFFIE fic 'Falling Into You'. Not so much that you have to read it if you haven't read it before but it is a lighter aspect than this was. Still very fun to write. Thank you for reading and let me know what you thought of it._

 _I plan to do more of these if I get some more ideas as a continuing series - or you can send me a request and I'll work something out as I do. Hayffie is life :3_

 _much love,_

 _day_

* * *

 _you took your demons  
and your life-sized fears  
and hid them away from yourself  
thought you could keep them  
but they've broken free  
and now you find you're so out your depth  
and you have lost  
but admit, you would never  
too afraid of what honesty costs_

\- luna blake / atlas

* * *

Bad days came in waves. Effie sometimes wondered how she was able to stand the strength of the tides when they were fighting. The days were better than the nights. She was certain of that.

She woke with a start replaying the nights events and turning to her side expecting him to be there. She forgot. He wasn't going to be there. There was only one place that he could be. She stamped down the hope that he didn't do what she had said.

Effie was an idiot. She was kept together most of the time but sometimes she let the weariness of her past show and the claws came out. It didn't help that Haymitch - her friend and companion was just as fierce in his anger when he let it show. Last night was by far the worst bout they had had in a long while. The first real fight they had had happened when he asked her to movie in with him.

At the time Effie was just about to take a corporate job in another city with the people she was used to being around. Then he had asked her as if it was supposed to make a difference. Change her mind, she supposed. It had but she hadn't been willing to admit it at first. She had cried and launched at him and held him close as if she hadn't want to let him go. She had been about to move to another city without thinking of what that meant for him.

In some sense he was trying confess that he would miss her - that he would do anything to make her stay even ask her to move in with him. They hadn't been close to that. She hadn't thought so, at first. There was a pattern here with them. He was a bumbling man who had already worked things out cleanly in his head even when it takes her time to see what he sees. He's smart. She wished he was smarter about things. She wouldn't change him, no no no, she wouldn't change an ounce of the man.

There were things that she supposed she could change but she had learned to be a certain way and slipping out of it had been the hardest thing she had ever done, but she had done it. For him. For them. For what she wanted.

It was funny how what she wanted had left her the moment she had told him so.

She made her way down the steps - it seemed like a mile instead of the eleven and a half steps (one a quarter of the way up had broken in half and never been repaired) that it took to get down to the lower floor of the house. She passed the kitchen to the living room where the sofa was - where he should be.

He wasn't there.

Effie crumbled into a ball on the couch and rocked minutely. She didn't let herself cry yet. She was in denial that this was happening.

She was mid-rock when she heard something shift under her hip. She lifted her side up grasping whatever it was. Her eyes scrunched up at the piece of pair. There were only a few words on it, but it was enough for Effie to get out of her slump and rush back up the steps.

 **I'll be back. - Haymitch**

She had to do something before he got back. Her mind wouldn't settle, fragments of things that had happened fluttering to and fro as she moved around. She needed to go get things. She had to make things right.

"If you're gonna keep this up, why are you still here?" She had yelled at him, tears on her face as he her opposite was calm - a huge difference than he was used to. She could see it in the red of his cheeks and the way he would bite down on his lip as if he was trying not to say something. To not set her off again. To not make things worse.

It fell apart after that.

The melancholy air flitted through the iciness and Haymitch had said, "If it's what you want." He paused turning from her field of vision before continue. It was as if he couldn't look at her right now. She wondered in that moment if it was because he was too angry or was it because he was sad. He never wanted to be sad. It's what made him start his bad behavior. The drinking from his past. He had kept a lid on it for the most part but she had never judged him for it.

To say that he was a mean drunk would be an understatement. Not towards her, but to himself. She had always been able to tell that he fell into his head a lot whenever he drank three beers in one night or drunk half a bottle of whiskey. He had things that he was still dealing with. Some he had shared with her, others they had barely scratched the surface. She wondered if he regret asking for this.

"If you want me to go, just say so. I'll walk out, I'll never bother you again." It had given her pause and even though she was hot in the head about not going to the big party that the town was throwing as a celebration because he hadn't wanted to go she couldn't let it go any further. She had gather what wits she had left in her and simply told him with the frog lodge in her throat, "I don't want to talk anymore."

In truth she hadn't expected him to do anything. However, waking up without him and coming down to see him not there. It hurt. It felt like her whole world had tilted and she didn't know who to turn to. She could ask the nice couple down the street. They had always listened. Peeta and Katniss - they were a nice set. Had a few kids. Kids that Haymitch had seemed to like. Would he just leave them too once he had worked out what he needed to?

He always left her with hundreds of questions. None that she could actually answer until he came back home.

She decided to pay Katnisss to visit all the same until she had worked out a list of what the night could entail if he made it back tonight. The note hadn't said when just that he would return.

Before leaving she had checked the closet out of fear. Then she shut the door and steeled herself because nothing had been missing. He had come back to leave the note then ducked back out again.

Katniss had looked less rattle than she had been the last time Effie had stopped by. Effie usually brought something with her but today she was empty handed. The hands came twisting in front of her as she stepped over the threshold and followed the young mother into the TV room. It was quiet today.

"What brings you by, Effie?" The brunette did her best to smile, it wasn't her easiest thing to do but she did try. Effie assumed it was because Effie was always smiling.

"I don't know what to do with myself." She slumped against the brown sofa. Katniss brows rose a little but she didn't say anything. Not really nowing how to deal with a weeping woman - a weeping older woman at that wasn't an easy feat. "Haymitch left. We fought. He said he's coming back. Left a note." Effie had brought it with her. She didn't want to throw it away. Thoughts that she rather not say aloud were circling in strong waves pushing against her sanity.

"He's a man of his word." The girl was sure of this. She passed the note back to the blonde and gave a better smile as she patted her hand. "Don't worry." The thing about Katniss was that sometimes her words felt short. Not in the sense that she didn't mean them but that sometimes it sounded like it was hard for her to talk. She and her husband had been the talk of the town for awhile. Saviors of some kind from years past.

It had sounded like a mess but Effie had always been so confident about things that she was sure that everything turned well in the end. Despite the deaths. So many deaths. Effie shut her eyes thinking about it.  
That time was over now.

Things were supposed to be better. She didn't see it.

She sat with Katniss until Peeta came back. The baker husband who had a hard time connecting. Effie thought he was sweet. Even when he seemed lost at times. She never asked about that, didn't want to pry. She had gathered enough about him to know that he was a good kid.

She gave him a peck on the cheek on her way out.

It didn't take her long to get back to the house. She unlocked the door and slipped in. She thought about grabbing a glass of wine, it might help settle her now that she was back in the house. However the sigh of Haymitch stopped her mid-stride to the kitchen.

He was still in the same clothes he had on the previous night. She stood there awkwardly unsure of what he would say or what he would do.

"You never answered my question." He said quietly from his perch on the sofa. He kept flex his hands as if preparing to move at any moment. His legs wouldn't still neither. He was nervous.

It didn't take her too long to realize what he was talking about. Stay or go? Her answer was so obvious that she didn't have to think at all for all of the few seconds it took her to tell him. "I don't want you to leave. We had a bad night." She told him firmly.

She didn't move towards him yet.

He scoffed. He might have still had feelings about the row. She just wanted the nightmare to end. "So no, stay. Stay for me, eh?" She continued ignoring the noise he made or the smug look on his face.

She hurried over to him. She didn't touch him at first. She wasn't waiting for him exactly she was just taking him in. One night away after angry words turned her into this messy person who need reassurance that he wasn't going to slip away from her.

Effie started off simply by plucking his favorite beanie off his head to showcase the blonde that was underneath. He stared at her all the while. He didn't do anything until she reached out to touch his face. He held her hand there and sighed. "Okay, sweetheart."

That was enough for her.

She fell into hid lap and wound herself around him. "You scared me." She whispered into his neck as he wrapped his arms around her keeping her close. "Yeah? The feelings mutual, E."

They didn't say anything more after that. They would talk later but for now they needed this. This was solid and unchangeable and promising. This was the aftermath and before they took one more step they need this - solace.


End file.
